My Soul to Take: A Novel of Iceland (32 page)

"Haven't you heard from the lovely Bella?" asked Matthew. "Wasn't she going to check that out for you?"

"Damn, I'd forgotten her," said Thora. She took out her mobile and quickly dialed the office.

"Hello," said Bella flatly as she picked up. No "Central Lawyers," no "Can I help you?"—nothing to suggest that the caller had reached a respectable law firm rather than a private home.

"Hello, Bella. This is Thora. Did you find out anything about the connection between foxes and horses?" Thora couldn't be bothered to scold her yet again for her telephone manner.

"Eh?" replied the girl idiotically. "Oh, that." When she stopped talking, Thora thought she could discern a sucking noise followed by a quick exhalation.

"Bella, are you smoking in the office?" she asked, irritated. "You know that's not allowed."

"Of course not," replied Bella. "Are you crazy?"

Thora was sure she could hear the crackle of burning tobacco. Could the girl have taken up smoking a pipe?

Before she had time to ask, Bella went on, "The horse-riding types I spoke to hadn't heard of any specific connection between the two, so I talked to a foxhunter I know and I got a bit more out of him."

Thora completely forgot about the smoking. "What did he say?" she asked eagerly. Would her secretary prove useful for once?

"Well," said Bella, "he told me horses can go mad with fear if they smell the scent of a dead fox, especially if it's started to rot."

"Is that something only foxhunters would know," Thora asked excitedly, "or would all riders be aware of this? Do you think the ones you spoke to could have been particularly ill informed?"

"Ill informed about foxes?" Bella asked sarcastically. "I don't have the faintest idea, but I'd say they don't know about it, as a rule. I mean, how often do you come across a fox?"

"Thanks, Bella," said Thora, meaning it for probably the first time ever. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off?" Her offer wasn't that generous, since the secretary's absence would have no discernible effect on the company's operation. She hung up and recounted the conversation to Matthew.

"So the murderer tied a fox to Eirikur to drive the horse wild—to make sure the poor man would be killed and not just badly injured." Matthew raised an eyebrow. "A pretty cold customer."

"But as a rule riders don't know how horses react to a dead fox," said Thora pensively. "It's mainly foxhunters who do." After reflecting for a moment she added, "I wonder if Bergur hunts foxes. He has ducks on his farm." She looked up at Matthew. "There was a box of rifle cartridges in the stables, in the coffee room."

Matthew stared back at her. "Could 'RER' have been an att
empt at
'BER,' for 'Bergur,' but Eirikur couldn't write it properly?" He took out his mobile and called up the photograph he had taken of the scrawl on the wall. It took him a while to enlarge the image and center it. "I'll be damned," he said after scrutinizing the photograph. He handed the phone to Thora. "The lower diagonal on the first
R
isn't straight like on the second one."

THORA
PUT DOW
N THE TELEPHONE XND TURNED TO MA
TTHEW. "I
think Thorolfur took the news quite well," she said. "He played it cool, but I could tell he was delighted. I predict Bergur will have a visit from the police soon."

"Or his wife will," said Matthew. "You never know."

"Yes, you do," she replied. "Some things you just know. I read the autopsy report and it's obvious that Birna was the victim of a very brutal rape, so no women are in the frame, except perhaps as accomplices. If Rosa did play a part in the murder, it wasn't with her husband. I doubt they could agree on the time of day, let alone something on this scale."

Just then, Soldis walked over to them. "Granny wants a word with you," she said awkwardly. "She asked me to ask you to phone her. It's something to do with what you were talking about yesterday." She looked down at her feet. "You don't have to if you don't want to, you know, but here's her number." She handed Thora a Post
-
it.

Thora thanked her kindly and took out her mobile immediately, while Soldis turned around and quickly left the bar. The telephone was answered after a single ring.

"Hello, Lara. This is Thora, the lawyer from the hotel. Soldis told me you wanted a word."

"Yes, hello. I'm so glad you called. I haven't been able to think about anything but Gudny since we talked yesterday. I believe that you'll lead to the child's fate being discovered at long last." Thora had the feeling that Lara was in a very emotional state, although her voice didn't betray it. "I'm holding the letter from her, the one I told you about yesterday," said the old woman, sniffing almost inaudibly. "I searched everywhere and eventually found it stored away with a couple of other things that I still keep from that time. I've read it over and again, and I think I've found something by reading between the lines." "What do you mean?" asked Thora.

"In one place she says the baby takes after its father and I'll see the resemblance at once," said Lara. "At the time, when all that talk about incest started up, I half believed she was referring to her father or uncle. Now that I'm older, I realize that no woman would say that about a child born under such circumstances. She also asks whether I know the whereabouts of a young man she was keen on before I moved away. She wanted to drop him a line." Lara stopped to take a deep breath. "I think that young man must have been the child's father. He moved to Reykjavik soon after me, and I remember how strangely he acted when I bumped into him a year or so later. He refused to talk to me. I didn't understand it then, and still don't, really. The baby might explain his reaction. Perhaps he thought I knew about the baby or Gudny's pregnancy and didn't want to discuss it. He had a young lady on his arm."

"Who was it?" Thora asked. "Is he still alive?"

"Most definitely," Lara replied. "When he dies, it will be reported in all the newspapers. He used to be a cabinet minister."

Thora felt her grip tightening on the handset. "Magnus Baldvinsson?" she asked, as calmly as she could.

"Yes, how did you guess?" exclaime
d Lara, astounded. "Do you know
him?"

"He's staying at the hotel," replied Thora, "but he may have left by now—his grandson came to fetch him yesterday evening."

"How odd," Lara said. "He's only come back for a few flying visits since he moved to Reykjavik all those years ago."

"Well, I never," was all Thora could think to say. "Could he have been so unhappy about the baby that he . . ." She hesitated, searching for a suitable phrase. Adults were one thing, but babies quite another "That he somehow had the child adopted after Gudny died, or simply . . . disposed of it?" She hoped her euphemism would be clear enough.

"I don't know," said Lara. Her elderly voice faltered. "Heavens, I can't believe anyone could do such a thing. Magnus was spineless, yes, but
evil?
I just don't know. I can't really imagine anyone behaving that way. They wouldn't be shown any mercy in our society. Not today, and not back then." She stopped to blow her nose. "Then there was your other question—about the coal bunker. I had a think about that and remembered that both farms switched to electrical heating before I moved away, which everyone thought was very posh. Bjarni set up a small generator by one of the waterfalls on the mountainside, north of the main road. I don't know if it helps you at all, but both farms stopped having to bother with coal then and the coal bunkers were never used again." Talking about something as down-to-earth as central heating seemed to restore the strength to Lara's voice, and she spoke now with no hint of sadness. "In the box where I kept Gudny's letter I found an old photo of the two of us behind the farm, and when I looked at it more closely, all this came back to me. You can see the coal hatch and the memories just flooded back."

Thora interrupted her. "When you say 'behind the farm,' which farm do you mean?"

"Kirkjustett," Lara said. "We didn't go to Kreppa much in those days. Bjarni and Grimur were barely on speaking terms and I'm fairly sure that their only contact was over the generator, which supplied both farms."

"So Kreppa had the same type of coal bunker?" said Thora. "There are no signs of it behind the hotel. Could it have been covered over by the annex?"

"No, it shouldn't have been," replied Lara. "If I recall correctly, it was a little ways away from the farmhouse, not in the area where the annex was built. The hatch ought to be in the lawn behind the hotel. Both farms had the same layout. It was considered awfully modern to have the coal bunker away from the house, because it was much more expensive than tipping the coal straight into the basement. The most impressive thing of all was to have an entrance to the bunker from the basement even if it was some distance away."

Thora looked at Matthew, her eyes wide. She ended her conversation with Lara, excited at the prospect of exploring the basement for a door to the bunker, but before she rang off, she promised to let Lara know if she found any clues about the fate of the mysterious child.

"I need to make a quick call," she told Matthew as she dialed the number of the prison. "I promise you I'll explain everything in a minute." Thinking back to the photograph that Birna had asked Robin to take of the basement wall, Thora didn't expect to find a door down there. When Jonas was brought to the telephone, she got straight to the point. "Jonas, I might need to make a hole in the basement wall, under the old part of the hotel. I just wanted to let you know. Are you all right otherwise?"

THORA, MATTHEW, AND GYLFI STOOD IN THE BASEMENT, IN FR
ONT
of the wall they had agreed must be the one backing on to the lawn. It had taken them a long time to figure out where to begin, but by lifting Soley so that she could see out through the dirty little windows, they could confirm that the wall from Birna's photograph was the right one. Matthew put down the photograph and picked up a sledgehammer. Thora moved back to where Sigga and Soley were watching excitedly. Gylfi stood by Matthew, ready to take turns when the German wanted a break.

Her son had insisted on joining them when they took shovels out on to the lawn—to make sure that the hatch was there before they began modifying the interior of the hotel—and the girls insisted on coming too, delighted to have something different to do. They found the hatch some thirty centimeters down, just beyond the inscribed rock, but instead of arduously digging around it, they had gone to the basement to look for the door they knew was there somewhere—a hatch that had been buried for decades, said Matthew, would be no easier to open than the one they had struggled with behind Kreppa.

"What do you reckon you'll find back there?" asked Gylfi, not entirely convinced of the wisdom of breaking it down.

"Honestly? I have no idea," replied Thora, "but it was obviously designed to keep people away. There's absolutely no reason to concrete over a basement door. It would only have been sealed this way if the point was to hide it."

"And what if there's nothing there?
" he said. "What will the owner
say?"

"Nothing," she reassured him. "I've informed him of our plans, and if worst comes to worst, he'll just have some wall repairs to keep him busy when he gets out of custody." Impatiently, she waved them on. "Fire away!"

Not needing to be told twice, Gylfi and Matthew pounded at the wall. Thora and the girls looked on expectantly, but soon realized that it would be a lengthy operation. It was more than half an hour, in which time Soley had fallen asleep from boredom on top of a pile of boxes and Sigga was yawning almost constantly, before the gap in the plaster, timber, and rock was big enough to climb through. Matthew and Gylfi stood back with their sleeves rolled up, dirty, sweaty, and out of breath.

"I'm not going in first," Thora said as she withdrew her head from the hole. "It's awfully stuffy in there. It smells like burning."

"I'll go," offered Gylfi, but Thora knew him well enough to realize that he didn't mean it.

"Matthew, you go first," she said, pushing him toward the hole. "Where's the flashlight?"

After all three had squeezed through the hole, Thora and Gylfi followed Matthew along the dim passage. The slender beam from the flashlight only helped Matthew in front, and the Icelanders bumped into him when he stopped at a door at the end of the passage. He turned around, shining the flashlight under his chin. Both Thora and Gylfi recoiled in horror, much to his amusement. He took the flashlight away from his face and lit up the door. "Shall I open it?"

They should have said no.

Chapter
31

SO I
IMAGINE
you found this by pure coincidence, like the photograph?" said Thorolfur. "You just happened to be down in the basement armed with sledgehammers and thought it would improve the decor if you removed one of the walls?"

Thora plucked a sliver of wood from her hair and was pleased to see that it was not a tooth, as she had feared. "No," she said. "I thought I made myself clear. We wanted to be sure we weren't sending you on some fool's errand and wasting the taxpayers' money. There was no way to verify what was down there without checking it. I must admit I didn't expect this." She shuddered as two detectives walked past pushing a wheelbarrow full of bones. A stench of burning wafted with them.

The hotel was teeming with police officers from neighboring constabularies, as well as expert investigators from Reykjavik. Thora suspected that few of them had any genuine reason to be there, but were driven by mere curiosity. She winced. "As I said, I expected to find the skeleton of one child, not bones stacked up to the ceiling."

"You didn't realize they were animal bones?" asked Thorolfur. "Maybe it was hard to see properly in the dark down there?"

"The bones I saw first weren't from an animal," Thora said firmly. "Before the heap collapsed, the flashlight lit up a little woolen mitten. A bone was sticking out below the cuff, so I can only assume there's a dead child in there somewhere. There couldn't be anything except a hand inside the mitten. It was protruding from the stack before it collapsed, so it presumably won't be found until all the bones have been removed. In your shoes, I'd tell the men to proceed with caution because underneath there's a—" She couldn't finish the sentence.

"As you may have noticed, this is a slow job," Thorolfur said, gesturing at the men and women working around him. "We follow all the procedures governing the investigation of a crime scene, whether we find human bones or not. We need to establish what happened, because it's hardly normal to bury half-burned carcasses like this. So don't worry about us destroying any evidence. You'd do better to keep worrying about Jonas, because this has no bearing on the issue of his guilt."

"Not even if I told you that under all this lies the skeleton of the illegitimate child of Magnus Baldvinsson, from World War Two?"

"I don't see why that would make any difference," said Thorolfur offhandedly, although his interest was clearly aroused. "Or perhaps you mean that he murdered his own child, then slaughtered dozens of animals and threw their bones over the body?" He smirked. "And then came back, sixty years later, to pick up where he left off?"

"It's up to you what you deduce from all this, but paternity will be provable because a DNA sample must be taken from the child's remains. Even though it won't prove who killed her, the paternity test is bound to raise questions and I don't think Magnus Baldvinsson will come out of it smelling of roses."

"So you're back to your theory that Magnus or Baldvin killed both Birna and Eirikur?" Thorolfur asked.

Thora picked more debris from her hair. "Not really. Like I told you on the phone I was beginning to think that it could be either Bergur or his wife with a male accomplice," she said. "Matthew and I saw the wife leave the hotel with a waiter who works here. They seemed very close," said Thora. "It occurred to us that Rosa might have seduced him and got him to kill Birna. She could have done that in revenge for the affair with her husband."

Thorolfur's eyebrows rose so high they disappeared into his hair. "You've met Bergur's wife," he said. "Does she seem a likely seductress?"

"No, actually, she doesn't," admitted Thora, "but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you never know."

Thorolfur grinned maliciously. "Does this waiter's name happen to be Jokull Gudmundsson?" he asked.

"Yes," Thora said. "I'm not sure about his second name, but his first name is certainly Jokull. Did you know they were an item?"

"They're brother and sister," he said. "That presumably explains how 'close' they seemed when you saw them."

Thora said nothing. Now she understood Jokull's antipathy toward Birna; his brother
-
in-law had been having an affair with her. It also explained his reaction to her question about Steini. His father had caused the accident, so he was bound to be as touchy about discussing it as his sister was. "Ah," she said finally. "That changes things slightly."

"Yes, doesn't it?" replied Thorolfur. "But there's no harm in telling you that we're still investigating Bergur's possible involvement," he added mildly, giving her no hint as to whether he was a suspect along with Jonas. "I can also tell you that his rifle is being cross-matched with the shell found in the fox's carcass. We don't have the facilities in Iceland, so it was sent abroad. Unfortunately, it takes a few days to get the results from there, but in the meantime we've got a few things to look into." The police inspector took his leave of her, and headed down to the basement to see what progress was being made.

Thora went over to Matthew, who was reaching the end of his statement to the police. This had taken a considerable time because the officer insisted on using an interpreter.

"Do you reckon we're off to join Jonas in prison?" Matthew said, grinning, as they walked away. "The way I look right now I'd fit right in there," he added. His clothes were covered in dust and earth, since he hadn't had time to change since the bones had fallen on them.

Thora looked him up and down, amused. "How long is it since you've got this dirty?" she asked, removing what turned out to be a fragment of bone from his sweater.

"Ages," he replied. "We don't break down many walls at the bank, and I've never encountered a heap of bones the size of that one down-stairs."

Thora shuddered. She told him about the connection between Rosa and Jokull—hardly the Bonnie and Clyde they'd imagined. "You know," she said, "I bet the person who put up that inscribed rock out here knew what was underneath it. It must have been intended as a kind of gravestone. A secret memorial."

"Which presumably means the child didn't die a natural death. Otherwise why would it be disguised?" said Matthew, as they arrived at Thora's room. "Besides, no one in their right mind would put a dead child in a place like that unless they had something to hide."

"I think Magnus laid that gravestone," she replied, opening the door. She went straight over to the telephone on the bedside table. "I'm going to call Elin and ask if she knows anything about it. Maybe she and her brother remember when it was put up, and by whom."

"Do you think she'll want to talk to you?" he asked.

"I doubt she'll slam the phone down on me this time," she said. "Not when I tell her the skeleton of a child has been found on land where her grandfather and his brother lived, and which has been owned by the family for decades." She looked up Elin's number. "And I'll trick her by using the hotel telephone in case she happens to recognize my mobile number." She turned back to the telephone. "Hello, this is Thora Gudmundsdottir," she said when it was answered.

"What do you want?" snapped Elin peevishly. Thora could hear that she was in a car.

"Firstly, I wanted to let you know that a huge stack of bones has just been found at the farm."

"And what business is that of mine?" cried Elin. "It's the same old story. There seem to have been dozens of bodies found in the area since Jonas bought the land. I heard on the radio this morning that he was taken into custody."

"Yes, that's right," said Thora, trying to conceal her annoyance that the media had got hold of Jonas's case. "However, these bones have nothing to do with him, as they were probably there long before he acquired the property. If memory serves, your family built the current farm buildings, and have always owned them. Isn't that right? I'm afraid this could be far worse for you and your brother than for Jonas. Most of the bones are from animals, but in all probability a child's skeleton will also come to light."

"What?" Elin exclaimed shrilly. "A child's skeleton?" She seemed genuinely shocked and confused. "What child?"

"We don't know yet," said Thora. "The police will be speaking to you very soon, so it's probably best I don't tell you too much. I just wanted to ask you one thing." She paused, but Elin said nothing, so she continued. "Behind the house, on the eastern side, is a large rock carved with a verse that I think comes from a folktale. Someone must have put it there, because it's not a work of nature. Do you know anything about this rock, or do you know who put it there?"

"The rock?" said Elin, astonished.
"What's that got to do with any
thing?"

"Maybe nothing," said Thora untruthfully. "I'd just like to find out what it is, in order to rule it out as evidence." She crossed her fingers, hoping Elin would believe her.

"I can assure you it's nothing to do with this," declared Elin. "My mother put that rock up many years ago. It was an advance wedding present to herself, or so she said. Don't ask me why—she never explained it any further—but you can be quite sure it has nothing to do with any dead child."

Thora was surprised to hear that Malfridur, Grimur's daughter, had placed the rock there, but she carried on. "One last thing. What were you and your brother, Borkur, doing over this way on Sunday evening? I have a printout from the police showing the vehicles that passed through the tunnel that day and you were both there."

"We came to meet you," answered Elin irritably. "Don't you remember? You came to see us on the Monday. We'd decided to beat the morning traffic and go up to Stykkisholmur the previous evening. Surely you don't imagine Borkur and I are involved in this murder case?"

Thora demurred awkwardly. "It's just one of a number of points I want to be able to tick off," she explained.

"Well, you can tick this off too: Borkur didn't go west to kill anyone on Thursday either," snapped Elin.

Thora said nothing, not wanting to reveal that she'd had no idea Borkur had been on the move that day. Elin obviously thought Thora had a list of cars for each day. "So why did he come?" she inquired cautiously.

"He won't be pleased that I've told you," replied the other woman. "I had a hard enough time getting it out of him." The loud screech of a horn cut her off, and when she came back on the line, she was swearing. "Stupid old bastard! Why don't they take their driving licenses away before they go senile at the wheel?" she said crossly, before continuing. "The only reason I'm telling you what he was up to is to get rid of you, and prevent any more unfounded allegations against us."

"I really don't mind
why
you're telling me," retorted Thora. "So what was he doing?"

"He went to see a real estate agent who was very keen to see the remaining farming properties, with a view to selling them," said Elin. "He knows I want to wait, and he did it against my wishes. The real estate agent can confirm it, if you want to check."

Thora said goodbye and hung up. "Borkur and Elin's mother had the rock placed there," she told Matthew. "They're very odd people, which is hardly surprising in view of their family medical history— both the grandparents had mental problems—but they're probably innocent of both murders. She gave me reasonable explanations for being here, at any rate."

Thora stood up and picked up the bags containing Jon Arnason's folktale collection. "If I can find the verse, there may be some further explanation of it in the accompanying text. That might tell us why their mother had the verse carved into the rock, and had it put there." She put the bags on the desk. "I must remember to return the books on our way back to Reykjavik," she said. "My fines are already enough to pay for a whole annex to the library at home. I don't want to do the same all over the country."

"You're not going to read all those, are you?" asked Matthew as he watched Thora extract one weighty volume after another. "Maybe I'll have a shower in the meantime."

"It won't take long to look it up," said Thora. She turned to the contents page in volume I and found the entry for "abandoned children." "Here it is," she exclaimed eagerly and looked up from the book. "Here's a story with the title 'I Should Have Been Wed.' That must be it." Thora rapidly scanned the brief story, then placed the open book in her lap.

"What is it?" asked Matthew. "I can't tell if that expression means good news or bad."

"Nor can I," said Thora. "It's the story of a mother who left her infant outside to die. Some years later she had another daughter, whom she raised. When the girl reached marriageable age, a young man asked for her hand and they were betrothed. In the midst of the wedding ceremony, there was a banging at the window, and the guests heard this verse chanted: 'Kerns I should have cast, a farm was meant for me, I should have been wed, just like thee.' " She looked at Matthew. "It was the ghost of the dead child, speaking to her sister."

"So the verse is a reference to the fact that the sister is enjoying what should have been the lot of the child left to die?" asked Matthew.

"Yes, that's the obvious meaning," said Thora. "Could Gudny have had another child?" She was shaking her head even as she said it. "No, I don't think so."

"But who got what should have belonged to the child?" asked Matthew. "Presumably the child was her mother's heir?"

Thora puffed out her cheeks, then slowly let the air escape. "It depends when Gudny died of TB. If the child predeceased her, of course the child couldn't inherit anything from her mother. If the child died after Gudny's death, that changes things. Gudny's father died first. Since he was a widower, and she was his only child, Gudny would have been his sole heir, so the child would have inherited all her mother's assets on
her
death."